There are terms for decisions that are often used in business discussions in tech companies in America. Sometimes they are referred to as “one-way door versus two-way door”, other times as “glass ball or rubber ball”. In either case, the meaning is the same. “Is this a decision we can undo later?”

You may see where this is going, if you paid attention to the tags on this post.

First, a few disclaimers. I am not a lawyer, so I am leaning on articles written by those who are. And while I have spent decades around the table top industry, it has never been my livelihood. Nor have I ever published anything under the OGL.

Last week, word leaked of a revision to the OGL from Wizards of the Coast. The most significant part of this was that Wizards intended to revoke (sorry, “deauthorize”) the 1.0a OGL that has been in use for a couple of decades. For an analysis of this by an actual domain expert, look to this article by Kit Walsh

Today, Wizards released a non-apology-apology which, frankly, isn’t that believable on its face. You’ll note that no one is actually taking responsibility for the errors directly, and the spin of “Our plan was always to solicit the input of our community before any update to the OGL” just doesn’t pass the smell test.

I’m going to assume you’ve read the piece by Kit Walsh linked above, because I’m not a lawyer. But, to summarize my understanding, the OGL largely gave publishers rights they already had, and required them to give up some rights they may have had. So, what, precisely, was in it for the publishers using it?

In general, in a lawsuit in America, each side pays their own legal expenses, win or lose. There are exceptions, but they are edge cases. So even if you are within your rights, the cost of establishing that in court can be prohibitive. In effect, the biggest benefit of the OGL was security, the knowledge that this was absolutely authorized and you weren’t going to have to spend far more money than you ever made on a product to defend your right to have printed it in the first place.

The actions Wizards took broke the trust in that security. And that’s a one way door. The glass ball is in shards on the floor, and it looks like the industry will adopt a different license. Who would tie themselves to a business partner they cannot trust, when there are other options?

How badly will this hurt the D&D One (which some angry fans have started referring to as “D and Done”) release is still to be seen. But with the loss of at the very least a significant part of the third party ecosystem support, significant negative brand publicity, and an enormous amount of free publicity for their smaller competitors, they certainly did a lot of damage to themselves.

The following is extra-canonical setting information for my Blue Rose campaign. 

Origins of the Sovereign’s Finest

The roots of the Sovereign’s Finest are in the scouts set to watch along the Icebinder Mountains in the aftermath of the Kernish invasion, and the tradition of royal envoys sent out to negotiate or investigate on the Crown’s behalf. Established by Queen Alia, the two halves of the Finest weren’t truly merged until the reign of King Rikin.

As a result of King Valin’s corruption, more than half of the Finest along the northern borders had refused to follow the King’s Orders. In the aftermath of Valin’s fall, King Rikin expanded the mandate of the Finest beyond the border watch. With their fidelity to the ideals of Aldis proven, he expanded the role of the Finest into a mandate to look out for Aldis and her people, wherever that duty might take them. It was at this time that the term Envoy was applied to the Finest, although it has become common to refer to even the earliest members of the Finest as envoys.

The Making of an Envoy

With the increased responsibilities, the training and selection of the Finest become more rigorous. Originally composed of scouts, adepts, and warriors willing to serve along the border with Kern, the Envoys were now charged with broad ranging and often nuanced duties. What began as an informal request by the King to senior members of the Finest to send qualified candidates to the city of Aldis for consideration as envoys rapidly became custom, and eventually law.

Any member of the Finest may choose to sponsor candidates for membership. The next steps depend on the candidate; in the time of King Issik one candidate was sponsored in the morning, and inducted later that same day. Some candidates remain with their sponsors for years, training in the field, and only travel to Aldis when their sponsor believes that they are ready for induction. Others may be sent directly to the Hall of Envoys to study while their sponsor continues their duties. There are still stories told of the Rhy-horse Dellaran who chose to travel across Aldis looking for troubled adolescents in need of a challenge, and routinely would arrive at the Court to drop off a young student, and then head out again, leaving the rest of the training in the hands of the Director. Whatever the path taken for any candidate, by the time they are considered for induction they have a solid understanding of both the laws of the Kingdom of the Blue Rose, and of the cultures and subcultures that are part of it.

Candidates must have a sponsor at all times. Should their sponsor reject them, or otherwise be unable to continue, a candidate will be removed from consideration if no other Envoy is willing to step in as sponsor. Candidates are considered for induction when any Envoy is willing to put them forward, even if their sponsor disagrees. The final determination was originally made by the Sovereign, but towards the end of the reign of Queen Larai, that responsibility was passed to the Director. Queen Jaellin restored the original policy, and at this time Envoys are inducted after review by the Director and the Queen.

Thorns of the Rose

If the Sovereign’s Finest are the voice and hands of the Crown, the Thorns are the eyes and the ears. These agents of the Kingdom work in secret, reporting only to the Director of the Finest. Their identities are secret even from the Crown, and revealed only when absolutely necessary.

There is a small garden just outside the Hall of Envoys, with an empty mausoleum, and a simple marble altar in front of it. Whenever a Thorn returns to the Wheel, a single rose is placed on the altar. White when the agent died from natural causes, or in the line of duty. Red, if the agent was inadvertently slain by an agent of the Crown. It is said that the Director plants a rose bush in the name of each agent, and that each plant only flowers once before dying.

 

Or perhaps Star Fate

I’ve realized that Fate is about as crunchy a system as I want to play right now; I’m not really interested in more complex game systems. And as seen previously, I really like the slant that the Jadepunk rules have taken.

One of the ideas I’ve toyed with off and on is running a game in the Star Wars Universe. The thing is, a lot of what a licensed Star Wars RPG brings to the table I don’t actually want. If I’m going to run a Star Wars game, then the setting is Star Wars. No Expanded Universe, no sequels of any kind, just Star Wars. Anything in Star Wars is cannon, anything afterwards might get included, but most of it wouldn’t be.

No Midichlorians. No Ewoks. Darth Vader killed Anakin Skywalker. Leia is the daughter of Bail Organa of Alderan.

What follows is a rough set of guidelines for how I’d treat the Force in play (rough in that I’m deliberately leaving it vague to handle any Fate variant you wanted to use).

So, the Force. It is generated by all living beings, and flows through and around them. Some people can manipulate it. It has a Dark Side and a Light Side, but these are neither personifications nor ethical stances, just descriptions of side effects. Actions have reactions, and with the Force and its ties to life, that is even more so.

Those people who control the force calmly and dispassionately reinforce those parts of their brain. This is the harder path, because it is precisely that calm and dispassion that is disrupted by the rest of the autonomic nervous system during times of stress. It is fight or flight, overriding that to fight, flight, or the Force is hard. Those who instinctively reach out with adrenaline (or the equivalent for their biochemistry), with fear, with anger, with emotion, can also control the Force. This is easier because those are easier (especially in times of great stress or danger) to attain. But as with calm, reaching out for the Force out of anger, or fear, or hate, strengthens those parts of the brain. Tempers become shorter, compassion is quelled. It is not inherently an issue of right and wrong, it just is. But greater control is a harder path.

Mechanically, we’re going to add a new special case Aspect (really more of a three stage toggle) called Serenity. Any character can be outside of Serenity, in Serenity, or in Serenity x2 (this really just means it is harder to lose). Note, any character being portrayed as angry, frightened, or exhibiting panic or any of the “Dark side” emotions is automatically dropped out of Serenity.

Gaining Serenity is a Create Aspect test (using whatever Skill/Approach/Technique is appropriate for the Fate variant being used), with the difficulty set by the degree of danger/fear/stress that the character is facing. Success puts the character into Serenity, Success with Style gives Serenity x2. Normally, this would take an action.

A character can also gain Serenity by spending a Fate point to invoke a Force power (more on that below). If that test succeeds, the character also gains Serenity (or Serenity x2) if it succeeds with Style.

By default, any failure of a Force power (that is to say, the roll failed) will drop the character by a level of Serenity, as will taking physical or mental stress, or being confronted by damage to someone or something the character cares about quite deeply. This fairly obviously lends itself to stunts or techniques as the character grows in the Force.

And again, giving in to the “Dark side” emotions (for example, deliberately causing more pain than necessary) will drop the character out of Serenity entirely.

A character may use a Force power when any of three conditions are met. One, the character is in a state of Serenity. Two, the character spends a Fate Point. Three, the character gains or has gained a Dark Side point in this scene. Note that the last is a choice as well, simply reaching for the Force through the easier path makes the Force available for the rest of the scene.

When a character’s Dark Side points equal or exceed their Refresh, they can no longer enter Serenity through a skill check. When a character’s Dark Side points equal or exceed twice their Refresh, they can no longer spend Fate Points to invoke Force powers.

Removing Dark Side points can only be done during a Major milestone. It takes the place of all benefits of the Major milestone (as apart from other milestones) except the changing of the High Concept. The character’s Dark Side points are reduced by their Refresh.

 

Jadepunk:Tales from Kauso City is an absolutely fantastic adaptation of the Fate system from Evil Hat.  I could go on for a bit about how much I like the way they’ve tuned the Fate rules, but suffice to to say, you should go look at it, and if you have the shekels to spare, you should get a copy.

I’ve been toying about with the notion of what kind of a game I’d like to run. Most of what I play these days is storygaming, simply because that is what I’ve had the time commitment for, and because there is an excellent group in east side of the Seattle metroplex to play with. But if I want to run something with more of a classic RPG feel, it needs to be something that doesn’t take a lot of prep time. Because honestly, I don’t have a lot to spare, and that means the game would sputter out after a session or two. So, I need player driven plots, and I need good old fashioned dungeon crawls.

This also means I don’t want the game to move around (movement means more prep work), so I need an excuse for lots of accessible bits of dungeon near a common area. And I want the “many Kingdoms have risen and fallen before us, many things were lost, and some of them should have stayed lost” feel of a lot of the pulp fantasy of the early 20th century.

So, the setting. An oasis city (based on the real world example of Palmyra). An important trade route city that managed to stay independent because it was just far enough out from the major empires to be an important trade link, but not so close as to be absorbed (well, up until it decided to try doing the absorbing, but we don’t have to duplicate Zenobia’s territorial ambitions).

The era. The major civilizations have in fact fallen to barbarians. There is still trade (although diminished), and the deserts have grown since the great empires were at their peak. Our city (quite possibly named Palmar or Palmyr, since I don’t feel particularly inventive as to names at the moment) is, relatively speaking, a center of what is left of the knowledge of those days.

The structure of the city. The old city (behind the original walls) is the home to the aristocracy, the families that mattered back when the city was worried about keeping its independence from the great powers. This is the region that has the great houses, the gardens and pools, flowers, and small fruit orchards. The outer city (between the towering original walls and the new, less protective outer walls) is a winding maze of slums and middle class neighborhoods. And beyond that, the desert.

With that, we have a limited number of changes to make to the Jadepunk rules to make things work (see also, minimal prep is a good thing).

Changes to Professions:

Aristocrat becomes Leader, but mechanically stays the same.

Engineer becomes Artisan, and covers any craft involving making something (including potions, magical artifacts, swords, armor, and so on). Mechanically, again, it stays the same.

Scholar is also the profession that magic or psychic powers would be linked to, and as such mechanically it has Attack and Defend as appropriate when those powers (which are mechanically just techniques) are used by a skilled practitioner. Note that some of these techniques could be defended against with other professions.

Additional Mechanics:

There are three main population groups. The inner city, the outer city, and the desert nomads. Each player (regardless of character concept) assigns social penalties values of -2, -1, and +0 (one to each population group). These penalties apply to social interactions in that social milieu. These don’t have to match the character origin, you could have a high born Scholar who has spent most of her life searching the sands who has a +0 with the nomads, -1 with the outer city, and -2 with the inner city (who consider her mad, and not really fit for polite company).

Excluded Mechanics:

We can remove the actual types of Jade since we’re not using that setting, and simply let artifacts be made out of whatever seems thematically appropriate.

And, that’s pretty much it. Everything else, from inventing schools of magic to schools of combat, to ancient relics can be done with the game rules as they stand.